Friday, May 14, 2010

Confirmation Sunday

Confirmation was a big deal in Minnesota, with its strong Lutheran and Roman Catholic heritage. The confirmation classes I taught in Minnesota were routinely twice the size of the regular Junior High youth group and Sunday School class. Whole families returned to church for their children's 7th and 8th grade years so they could be confirmed....and then they often vanished again after Confirmation Sunday until that child needed to be married back in their "home" church.

California does not have that strong confirmation tradition. So on the family night last Wed (see photo below) I asked the parents, grandparents and adults, how their faith was transmitted to them? What was the means and venue through which they went from child-faith to adult-faith. Some did say confirmation. Others said a strong Sunday School brought them to personal faith in Jesus. Others spoke about Bible Camps and Vacation Bible Schools. Some others said it never happened to them until they were adults.

This Sunday we will use salt and light and the laying on of hands to send the signal, message and truth to our three confirmands that they are one of us, part of the cohort of adult believers that compose the church. While their bodies are still adolescents, their faith hearts are adult and we recognize, bless and anoint them as such.